Collections of Resources on Education for Sustainability and Green Living

Friday, April 4, 2014

Expedition Hope starts today!

Dear friends,

I would like to invite you to join Plant-for-the-Planet on an exciting journey: Expedition Hope from the North Pole to Canada wants to raise awareness about the endangered Arctic and the urgency of acting for our climate now.

Please forward the message from Plant-for-the-Planet's founder Felix (16) below to all interested teachers, students, and schools in your network, report about the project in your newsletter or introduce Expedition Hope on your website.

Our global Children and Youth Initiative, Plant-for-the-Planet, has an exciting new project. Together with our friends, I will be planting a symbolic tree at the North Pole on 2nd April 2014. At the same time, Expedition Hope will begin, whereby three polar experts will trek from the North Pole to Canada. Our message:

The Arctic is in danger.

Now is the time to act.

Now is the time to plant trees.

You and your students can also be a part of our expedition. Follow the progress of the expedition team live at www.expedition-hope.org/blog/ and discuss the relevant topics in your lessons. Our e-learning platform, which will go online to coincide with the start of the expedition, will also offer valuable educational teaching materials that you may like to use in your lesson plans.

Your students and the entire school can join in and even plant trees or collect tree donations. For this purpose, we have developed a tree donation collection tool that you can embed on your school website. When expedition returns to civilization in Canada at the beginning of June, the world should be thousands upon thousands of trees better off.

At www.expedition-hope.org, you can find everything you need to know about the expedition. In the attached presentation, we show you how you can be a part of the expedition and how you can make associated lessons interesting.

There is still enough time before the team’s arrival in Canada for you to request support from us to help you to motivate your students:

Our global headquarters will gladly send you the thematic plan of the expedition, which will contain an overview of all the topics that we plan to be discussing during the expedition. The topics range from the albedo effect, the importance of the Arctic for the global climate, legal ownership claims to the North Pole, to ethical considerations.

Your students can also ask the expedition team scientific, socially relevant and personal questions. The science journalist Bernice Notenboom will respond in the team’s blog, which will be updated on a daily basis. Your students can prepare in advance, by watching the six-part documentary series Tipping Points. A list of broadcasters who have shown or will show this documentary series can be found here, along with clips from the shows.

Encourage your students to participate in our global reforestation initiative, which was started by and is supported by students.

Challenge other schools to a friendly tree-donation collection competition.

Our Carola Bick, Diana Arsulescu und Kerstin Knuth will gladly support you in your preparations and can be contacted at schools@plant-for-the-planet.org.

Please encourage your students to get involved with our global children and youth initiative.